Small-scale family entrepreneurship as support to the neoliberal state in post-socialist Serbia

Abstract

This paper points to the danger of the neoliberal instrumentalization of feminism in promoting family entrepreneurship as an emancipatory practice for women. It criticizes the key myths of neoliberal feminism about the freedom of choice that women have and their empowerment through family entrepreneurship. To that end, and through empirical research, it explores the benefits of women’s participation in the management of small-scale family entrepreneurship and business in 30 micro and small-sized firms in the traditional sectors, during the post-socialist transformation of Serbia. The aim of this article is to show that the process of women’s emancipation does not rest on these myths, but rather on the possibilities to change power structures based on the logic of capital and the neoliberal state in the semi-periphery of the world system, as well as the patriarchal gender regimes, that reproduce the strong subordination of women. The economic, social and moral benefits of entrepreneurship for women are debatable and limited by the interests of big capital and the neoliberal state. The possibilities of transforming gender relations through gender policies remain limited, because they do not derive from critically situated feminist discourse and do not correspond to the structural dispositions of a semi-peripheral economy and society like Serbia.